So, I was chatting with Dylan via Steam Friends yesterday and he told me he was bored. OMG, I wish I had time to be bored. I decided to challenge him and see what happened. I told him he had 123 minutes (Don’t ask me why I said that, it just sounded about right!) to make a playable SP level with orange textures, two weapons and unlimited ammo. The rest was up to him and this is the result.
- Title: Dylan Holcomb Two Hour Challenge
- File Name: hl2-ep2-sp-dhthc.7z
- Size : 124kB
- Author: Dylan Holcomb
- Date Released: 25 January 2009
Download directly into MapTap [124kB]
You MUST have MapTap installed before using this link.
You can still use it with MapTap once you have downloaded it.
- Copy dhthc.bsp into your Half-Life 2 Maps folder.
- Launch Half-Life 2
- Open the console and type map dhthc.
- Press enter/return or click the Submit button.
- Play and Enjoy.
Click on the thumbnails below to open a 1024 pixel wide image.
WARNING: The screenshots may contain spoilers.
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Please note: These statistics are valid from December 2010
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842Overall
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2Today
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9Last 7 days
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10Last 30 days
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52365 days
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 2 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 0 Hours, 5 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 4 Mins by JellyGal
Longest: 0 Hours, 5 Mins by MattieMonster1Offical
Total Time Played: 0 Hours, 9 Mins
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It’s hard to get too excited about these kinds of levels, but you have to remember the circustances it was made under. I actually had fun playing it but not everybody will think it’s worth it.
If you like to just play for a few minutes, yes really, just a few minutes then play this. Obviously if you are looking for a story and beautiful scenery avoid it. I still think it’s possible to make something really fun to play without textures and I may start other challenges with more time but limited in some other ways.
Thanks to Dylan for accepting the challenge and for agreeing to release the map here on PP.
I really like the idea for this kind of map. Phillip, I definitely think you should set more challenges like this and see what comes from it. It would be great for publicity for the site too. Interlopers have their monthly map challenges but they are just for aesthetics. It would be good to see some maps that are actually playable.
But anyway, on to the map itself. While the content itself was not bad it was definitely a “getting from A to B” style of gameplay, which doesn’t really lend itself well to time constraints as relies on showing more and more content. I think this map would have benefited from a style of gameplay based more around repetition (e.g. something like deathmatch or defending an area) as it would have maximised the gameplay time from a comparatively small amount of content.
This is a good effort for just 2 hours and I think I appreciate it more from a design standpoint than I do as a player. With a little more time or a different overall design approach it could have been considerably better.
Ha ha, you know, it was morning where I live when I made this, and I would really love to take the challenge again sometime!
Phil, I just got an idea, and seeing that you aren’t on Steam, I’ll give it to you now.
Perhaps a two-day challenge, or two week challenge where I make a full-blown mod in dev textures.
This would give me a little extra time to learn new things about gameplay, because most of my maps are just good-looking scenes.
I really wanted to expand upon this map, and even texture it, but for some reason Hammer won’t let me touch it.
I think it would be great to host HL2 mapping contests that focus on different themes.
This map was talked about on this weeks edition of Podcast17: http://www.podcast17.com/transmissions/c11225
Pingback: Podcast 17 · Providing truth to Citizens!
Well, something didn’t work for me. I didn’t have any ammo crates for the crossbow (I got a nice Error model-thing), and the zombine couldn’t be created for some reason. But I had pretty colors. 😉 (Really, the Combine in the different locations had different colored lighting?) And the unlimited ammo for the pulse rifle made the crossbow unnecessary, anyway.
If you want an HL2-style mod, you probably don’t want to play this. If you want something to do for 5 minutes, or want to play everything out there it’s playable.
Well, dur. I had the map in my HL2 maps folder, not my Ep2 maps folder.
Zombine created. Crossbow ammo crates visible. Combine not in pretty colors… It was more boring this way, actually. LOL. (Maybe only because it was my second time within 2 hours.)
Phillip, why are Ep2 maps showing up in the HL2 list?
EP2 maps aren’t showing up in the HL2 list, just this one was. I missed categorized it, corrected now, sorry.
It’s okay Phillip. The Error icons “matched” the orange walls. And, like I said, the Combine were in kind of pretty colors the first time. 🙂
I noticed when I was about to rename my DL–so you have a good naming convention (in case you ever wondered).
Yeah, it’s exactly what you would expect if you read the description. Just a really small map where you kill some stuff with a crossbow and a pulse rifle. I guess I was just supposed to wait for the door to open, but I killed everybody… oops.
Manually
Medium
4 Minutes
i will play this challenge and learn what others can do with sourcehammercreatortoolthingy, i made a box……
In all honesty, I wasn’t good but it wasn’t the worst.
It only took two hours to make (apparently). Considering the circumstances, this wasn’t to bad. Including decent lighting (nothing new or amazing) and some decent geometry, I wouldn’t say it was too bad!
You have infinite ammo and fight many combine in a target practice like area. You have castle-style cover and once you kill enough combine or survive for long enough (not sure which) the door into a empty, blocked off room opens, screen fades and you exit. (It did not disconnect by itself for me.)
It’s decent. If you are weird like me and are looking at small maps and really love combat, try it out! Of course, there are no puzzles. Just combat. Lots of it.
3/10
Please note: This map was only made in 2 hours, as I mentioned lots before, so it didn’t have as much time as it could off.
Manually
Easy
5 Minutes